President Bush Speaks To The American Wind Energy Association

Remember President George W. Bush? You know, the guy who wished he had a magic wand to reduce gas prices and the guy who started that oil war over there? Well, he recently addressed the American Wind Energy Association conference in Dallas and discussed wind power and our "addiction to oil." Bush seemed pleased with himself for admitting our addiction to the black gold and pronounced himself a technological determinist. The New York Times Green blog reports that Bush was feeling jocular and happy:

He (Bush) gave credit to Pat Wood, who was the chairman of Texas's Public Utility Commission when Mr. Bush was governor and later became chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "I said to him, 'Go get smart on wind," Mr. Bush said. "We've got a hell of a lot of it in Texas, let's try to figure out a way we can harness it.'"

These days, the former president said, "The overall trend in my judgment is that new technologies will find new ways to power our lives. I fully believe that hybrid plug-ins will be a transition to electric cars," he said, and that new ways to generate electricity will be needed.

It should be remembered that Bush stood in the way of a national renewable energy standard; pullout us out of the Kyoto protocol; tried to stop California from increasing vehicle fuel economy standards; and worked against a price on carbon pollution.

His failure to communicate to the American public the gravity of the climate problem has, in part, lead to our nation's views on energy. However, those views may be shifting. A new CBS poll out today finds that support for offshore drilling is eroding.

In a CBS News poll conducted earlier this month, 46 percent of Americans said they supported increasing offshore drilling for oil, marking a drop since 2008. That support has changed little in recent weeks: 45 percent said they were in favor of more offshore drilling in the new poll, while 46 percent said the associated costs and risks are too great.